Not to talk to, but better with the audience
Recently, a lady came to me for coaching. She is a high-ranking executive in the HR sector. The reason for her contact: She had been invited to give her first paid lecture in front of a very large professional audience. She was quite used to speaking in front of many people within her company, but wanted to work specifically on her voice for this new situation.
On the agreed date she appeared in my office well prepared, her presentation was ready. I asked her to hold it at the beginning, as she would do in front of an audience. It began, and after the first 5 sets I knew how I would proceed here in order to achieve a sense of achievement for both of us very quickly.
How did I know that immediately? Well, let's start by explaining what I heard and saw. I saw a very competent, self-confident, tough woman, cognitively fit and with a high level of expert knowledge. A lecturer who wanted to deliver her content thinking quickly and just as quickly and speaking a little breathlessly. With each slide, I had the feeling that she mentally ticked off this part and was already mentally rushing to the next part. In terms of content, everything was top, no question. However, the presentation seemed rigid as if from an ice house and would hardly have carried away or inspired the audience.
A possible solution would have been to classify this as pure performance coaching regarding the voice, to approach this task in a teacher-like way, to give her homework and to invite her back for a week. I chose a different path. Namely, the approach of using this cognitive fitness, which was clearly given here and which not everyone has, in a positive way. From my coaching tool box, I pulled out this solution without hesitation: "The patterns of language influence voice and body language".
What does that mean exactly? I made it clear to the coaching client that it makes a difference whether she gives an unambiguous, breathless monologue or whether she is in dialogue with her audience. So she understood that she had "only done her thing" so far and wanted to step down quickly after the last slide – deeply relieved. "Phew, I've got it behind me". This is fatal, because the audience notices something like this and switches off after slide three at the latest. For anyone who speaks publicly, it's important to know that listeners are much better persuaded if they are allowed to think for themselves! When you actively ask them to think for themselves!
In this coaching session we have worked intensively on dialogue-producing speech patterns and created a new structure for their presentation. The beauty of it is that as soon as she was in the new speech pattern and responded to her – still – imaginary listeners, her movement patterns automatically changed. This created natural pauses in speech and yes, the voice automatically transitioned into the all-important proper tone.
THIS is how performance coaching can also work. It is not always the voice that we have to work on in the first place. In order for this to change and optimize, a variety of factors must be considered. And those who master the keyboard of these possibilities will speak and act in the best possible way in every public situation. You can learn that from me. Even in an afternoon!
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Arno Fischbacher
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The author:
Arno Fischbacher is a business voice coach and rhetoric expert, speaker and author. He prepares executives and employees of the top companies in Germany and Austria for negotiations, presentations and media appearances. Fischbacher is the author of several books, past president of the German Speakers Association (GSA) Austria, chairman of the European Network of Voice Experts, stimme.at.
If you would like to learn more about specific training opportunities with Arno Fischbacher, make an appointment here free information talk.
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